Timing grace notes, 8 against 3, etc

Hello! I've been working on the Chopin Nocturne in e minor, Op. 72 no. 1, and am encountering some unexpected difficulties with timing. Was wondering if you had any tips!

The first (more general) question I wanted to ask was, how do you time multiple grace notes to go before the beat? I've played lots of grace notes before but for some reason I am having some trouble playing them correctly here. I typically play them too early, causing the main note to be sounded before the beat. See mm 31-33, 35 (this last measure I typically play them too late).

Secondly, I am currently tackling the measures numbering thirty-something, and the first 'show-stopper' was mm 31 with the sudden 4 against 3 rhythm (the rest of the piece is mostly 2 against 3). I've had a lot of practice playing 3 against 4, and that does not faze me much, and nor does the 2 against 3 in the rest of the piece - but I suddenly found myself unable to handle the 4 against 3!! I am actually past that now; after two weeks of working on it I can play it fine, though I still feel queasy when I play through it. However, there are other measures where I foresee trouble - e.g. mm 34, with the 8 against 3 rhythm for which I've not put the hands together yet (but can play it fine hands separately).

My teacher told me several ways of handling the 4 against 3 rhythm and after trying them I improved a little but still didn't quite manage it. I ended up doing it the way he said I shouldn't - by thinking about both rhythms together and playing it together. It is a little hard to explain! Any tips on the 8 against 3, as well as the other 10 against 3, and *gasp* 13 against 3 that awaits me on mm 35 and 37? I am not too worried about playing them up to speed at the moment - it is the rhythm that is tripping me.

Thanks,

Don't be afraid to make a grace note relatively long. Even playing it as an eighth note is sometimes OK if it helps maintain the line.

4/3 is one thing. 8/3, 10/3, and 13/3 are all very different animals, in that there is -no- -need- to synchronize the hands. Just let the left hand play mechanically and focus on shaping the right hand. Shape it, don't just tap it out. Think of how a violinist might play it, or how you might sing it.

Hi Deepak, this might be the 'wrong' way to accomplish 8 over 3 .If you use a metronome, practice hands separately but think of it as making a certain number of notes fit into a beat . Then with hands together , think of it as a shape or pulse that fits into a beat. This is where a metronome is very handy. But whatever you do, dont let those hangups prevent you from learning the rest of the piece. Sometimes you need to learn the entire piece to feel the right groove for those 8 over 3 type of measures.

I think the easiest way to learn a difficult timing pattern is to listen to someone else play it. Then you subconscious can help you make it fit. See if you can find or rent a recording of the piece and listen to someone else do it.

Gerry

Hi Deepak:

You are receiving some pretty good advice about the grace notes, so I will focus on the odd L/R patterns.

I have developed my own method of handling these bizzare patterns which occur so frequently in Chopin's works. My approach is a mathematical one and will render the patterns correctly if you are diligent. This may seem like a lot of work, but your brain will catch on quickly and you will be playing the patern beautifully in a week or so.

First let's talk about 8 on 3. Since the fraction 8/3 can't be reduced, the hands will only play together on the first of the eight notes and then again on the note following the pattern. If you divide 8 by 3 you get 2-2/3. This means that the right hand will play two notes on it's own (after the first hands-together note) and then a right-left-right exchange where the left note is closer to the last RH note than the first one. Since the remainder of the division is 2/3, the LH note is offset in a pattern of three equal spaces. So the timing of the R-L-R is as if the two RH notes are spaced by a triplet and the LH note plays only on the third beat.

Confused yet? Don't get discouraged. Try tapping your hands on your legs to get the R-L-R rhythm first. Tap your hands thinking in triplets 1-2-3-1 with the RH tapping on both the 1's and the LH on 3 only. Beat 2 is silent. Don't continue the rhythm; just do it one iteration at a time. The second R-L-R sequence that comes in the pattern is just the opposite. Now you play the LH on 2 and leave the 3 blank.

When you feel comfortable with these two exchanges, try tapping out the whole sequence: hands together, two RH taps, the 'left-early' R-L-H exchange, two more RH notes (in addition to the last one of the R-L-R), the 'left-late' R-H-R, two more RH notes and then the next note after the pattern, hands together. It helps to lay out the two patterns spaced on a piece of paper to see what you're doing visually. When you're comfortable with the tapping, start applying it to the piano. Play hands alone first, to get your hands used to the fingering, then try them together with the rhythm.

This may seem laborious and tedious, but it's not that bad. The first day you will struggle and may even think that you are going nowhere, but give it a chance. After a couple of days it will start to feel natural and you can increase your speed. After a couple of weeks, your brain will start thinking more gestaltly and cease to think about the triplets and smooth everything out. I used this method many years ago when I learned the Khatchaturian Toccata and my instructor said that I was the first person he had ever heard that played the patterns correctly.

10 on 3 divides out to 3-1/3, 11 on 3 divides out to 3-2/3, 13 on 3 is 4-1/3. The whole number tells you how many solo RH notes and the fraction tells you which R-L-R pattern to use first: left-early comes first for 1/3 and left-late comes first for 2/3.

Hope this helps!

It's 'cheating', but it works

For a visual representation of this, you can go here:
http://www.geocities.com/blind_ear_test/Time.html

This is a Java applet that I wrote a few years ago. Its key feature is that it highlights when the the L and R hands are playing notes close to each other rhythmically. In other words, it indicates the L-R, R-L, L-R-L, and R-L-R exchanges that Don described.

<snip> [refer to original post for the entire method]

Don, this is pretty darn cool. You are essentially dividing beats to the lowest common denominator (e.g. 24 for 8 against 3), *BUT*, an important but, the method asks to focus on the subdivisions only when needed. I knew that I could slow down to counting to 24, but that was way too laborious - your method does the same but with it I count the 1/24ths only when I need to!

It was not hard at all for me to practice this way. I got the hang of it like the third time I gave it a go (< 3 minutes). Of course, I am still terribly slow (about 3-4 times too slow) and it will involve quite a bit of more work, but I am no longer worried about it. To be frank, it was only yesterday that I really tried your method - so I am pretty impressed that I got this far already!

Must have taken some time for you to sit down and write about your method. Appreciate it!

on it (to figure out how to play it on my own first).

Actually, there's no avoiding cheating in this sense If I just kept trying randomly, eventually I'll hit the timing pattern right by accident; and then I'll know how it sounds like and can ape it! Happened to me several times.

Thanks for the responses, people!

I've made quite a bit of progress on both the 8 against 3 and the 10 against 3. I can actually play the 10 at speed one hand alone; so don't really have to work on speed. And more amazingly, when I got around to checking whether I was dividing the beat by 10 accurately, I found that I was!